The U.S. Federal Communications, FCC commissioner is calling for Apple as well as Google to eliminate TikTok out of their apps amid concerns that the user’s data from the popular social media platform is being accessed by China.
In a tweet on Wednesday, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr posted an note written at Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai who are who are the CEOs for Apple and Google parent company Alphabet as well as Alphabet parent company, respectively. He expressed concern about the TikTok’s Chinese ownership, stating that “it harvests swaths of sensitive data that new reports show are being accessed in Beijing.”
Carr made reference to an earlier BuzzFeed News report which disclosed that TikTok’s Beijing-based staffers of its subsidiary company ByteDance have repeatedly access to private information of U.S. users, despite promises from the company to the contrary.
“It is clear that TikTok poses an unacceptable national security risk due to its extensive data being combined with Beijing’s apparently unchecked access to that data,” Carr said in his report. “But it is clear that TikTok’s pattern of conduct and misrepresentations regarding the unfettered access that persons in Beijing have to sensitive U.S. user data … puts it out of compliance with policies that both of your companies require every app to adhere to as a condition of remaining available on your app stores.”
He claimed that TikTok isn’t simply a video-sharing app for kids, calling this aspect of its business “sheep’s clothing” meant to hide the fact that it’s an advanced device to monitor large areas.
TikTok was often the victim of regulators as well as White House officials during the Trump administration. ByteDance reached a compromise which allowed TikTok to operate inside the U.S., largely through an agreement to store user information within The United States.
